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About Me

I live and blog in Ann Arbor, Michigan. University of Michigan BA and MA from Eastern Michigan University. One term in the Michigan Army National Guard. The Institute of Land Warfare, Army magazine, Military Review, and Joint Force Quarterly have published my occasional articles.

The Undead Archives

My undead archives pre-Blogger were actually restored to life after Geocities sites went dark. Start at the old home page here.
If you find a link to the old site on the current site or old site, you should be able to replace the "g" in "geocities" with an "r" and make a good link.
I hope to move all the older archives here (and started that project) but it is really tedious.

Friday, May 20, 2016

How to Use Time

Time is one of the most valuable commodities in war. With time, you can prepare to win. Without it, you get your ass kicked. While we slowly grind away at ISIL, this pace grants ISIL the precious resource of time.

American commanders are growing concerned that a recent spate of deadly bombings in Baghdad will cause the Iraqi government to lose focus on an upcoming assault on Mosul, the Islamic State held city which government troops have been encircling for weeks.

That is certainly one way that ISIL could divert the glorious killing blow against ISIL-held Mosul being planned with such precision over the last year and a half.

I can say that giving an enemy time rarely works out. They may strike Paris. Hit Baghdad repeatedly. Use poison gas. Or exploit a weakness in Iraqi defenses to restore jihadi morale.

Or they might cause chaos in Baghdad. Because our "enemy" is a broad category that includes Sadr and his pro-Iran hand puppets as well as general corruption that undermines the rule of law that must be encouraged inside Iraq.

The Turks might cut a deal with Russia and pull out of the war in frustration at the cost of supporting the slow war to nowhere.

Who knows? Our enemies might collapse a dam to completely unhinge the Iraqi government's war effort, if not their legitimacy.

So, no, really, we should just take our time about getting the big push rolling.

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Note on site statistics: When I strip out the junk hits from Blogger statistics that seem to come and go in waves, I appear to have about 10,000 hits per month.

My old statistics package, Site Meter, seems to miss a lot and even disappears visits after they've appeared.

I just added a new StatCounter. So far it shows far fewer hits than Blogger and is more in line with Site Meter. But I suspect neither of the non-Blogger statistics register hits from social media. So I'm not sure what my audience size is. It is puzzling to me.